St. John’s, Antigua, June 30, 2012, (Government of Antigua and Barbuda's Website) - Minister of Health, Social Transformation, and Consumer Affairs Willmoth Daniel has reaffirmed Government’s commitment to the continued financial support of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). Daniel was speaking yesterday at the third meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) in Kingston, Jamaica.
He told the ministerial council that, “even in these challenging economical times, Antigua & Barbuda continues to make its financial contribution to CDEMA. We are honouring the agreement made to pay off the arrears while keeping our contributions current.”
The CDEMA emergency fund adjustment from $50,000 to $200,000 was supported by Antigua & Barbuda and the other Caribbean countries.
“This is the first adjustment since the inception of CDERA, even if we have to pay in installments,” the minister said. “This is critical based on the challenges that came out of the response to Haiti.”
With respect to the critical issues for Antigua & Barbuda, during the presentation of the country’s report and policy recommendations, Daniel explained that “the Cabinet of Antigua & Barbuda has taken steps to ensure that greater attention is paid to building resilience into public sector projects.”
This, he said, is to “address a more robust intervention into disaster management activities in our school programmes, in the workplace and specialize intervention into public safety activities, especially mass gatherings.”
The minister noted that, “in our early childhood, facilities and homes for the aged are also high on the government’s agenda for specialised intervention.
The cabinet has also mandated that at the end of August 2012, all schools government departments must complete the transition of their plans to the comprehensive disaster management requirements.
Other measures outlined in the report were the completion of a comprehensive disaster management strategy, a pilot project in St Mary’s South, which deals specifically with community profile and multi-hazard vulnerability intervention options.
The National Comprehensive Disaster Management Policy and Framework is to serve as the blueprint within each CDEMA participating state.